Lady Of The Lake
by Irelandlover
Summary: Toni Stark is nothing without the Iron Man suit. Or so people believe. They've never seen her in action sans suit. So why was Toni Stark caught on tape fighting off seven bad guys single-handedly with an umbrella? The simple answer? Toni Stark is a Kingsman. But the world doesn't know that. So she'll do what she does best. Improvise. Female!Tony Male!Pepper. Pretty Gen. Post-CACW
1. Chapter 1

Toni has no idea how they got inside the compound, but then again ever since she officially rented it out to the Accords Council, all security measure had fallen to them and they were hardly going to fit the building with a wide range intruder seeking weapons system.

It was impractical.

Expensive.

It was in Toni's lab.

Since FRIDAY was no longer installed in the compound there was no one to inform the only occupant at the moment—Toni—that a black standard 10 7CWT van filled with seven men in horribly made ski masks with weapons, had driven through the electricity-free fences which were turned off due to short wiring that Toni was here to fix, because surprise surprise no else seemed to give a shit that this compound held potentially world ending information that if were to be possessed by the wrong hands would fuck everyone over.

She was in one of the smaller social areas, smaller being the relative term since for some fucking reason she designed this place like the fucking Taj mahal. The accords council were not being billed cheap, but then again, the rent went into the Maria Stark Foundation which helped with the cleanup and repair of Avenger battle sites, so it was no skin off her teeth. Win-win for everybody and Toni wasn't footing the fucking bill.

The board had sent her ten different brands of whiskey and scotch by the truckload when _that_ particular detail was mentioned at Stark Industries budget meeting for the fiscal year. Having all that alcohol was both painful and therapeutic. Every time she craved it's sweet burn down her throat, another bottle would be thrown against the wall to DUM-E and U's excitement. She didn't know whether their beeping was due to the stimulation or the fact that she wasn't drinking it but oh well, as long as her boys were happy, who gave a fuck? Not Toni.

 _Click._

Toni's relaxed form immediately stiffened, her spine ramrod straight, shoulders pushed back and ears poised. She pressed the _enter_ button to activate the repaired sequence for the compound's security features. The flash of light from the edge of the perimeter signalled the electric fences had exploded to life, trapping the intruders inside with her. She was presented with a problem; her suit was downstairs in the lab behind impenetrable walls and could definitely bust it's way up here but that would leave the lab exposed to outsider infiltration and that might be the reason they were here and if she took down the infiltrators, armourless that might lead to speculation on _how_ she did it. _But at the same time… I can't just let myself be killed or taken…_

Plan B it was.

She grabbed the umbrella from the stand beside the couch, the interior decorator thought they added 'character' to the rooms, made the place seem lived in, offered a 'welcoming' air. Well, Vision saw at least five 'umbrella rooms' on the way down to the mortar and Toni's pretty sure him moving into the old Stark mansion disproved the Umbrella Theory™.

She had it in her hand when the first man stormed in, and proceeded to hook the handle around her glass of water and fling it at his head. It smashed against his forehead and with loud squawk he fell backwards into the next attacker. It gave her enough time to stand by the archway and jab the third man in the side with the umbrella's ferrule, puncturing his lung and sending him into the bookshelf. He smacked his head with a resounding thud, which should disorient him for a moment or two, maybe even keep him down if she was lucky.

'FRIDAY! Call nine-one-one!' She said, fingers poised on her bluetooth.

The fourth man came in followed by a fifth, overstepping their struggling first responders on the ground, with their guns outstretched in hand it was easy enough to smack the first gun upwards with the umbrella's length and hooked the handle around his neck and pulling him toward her, causing his body to take the first gun shot from his partner's gun which issued a spray of blood onto her white shirt. She pushed the gasping man toward the fifth responder, who let loose a round in an arc toward the ceiling in surprise. She stepped close and cracked the handle on his head which caused him to fall like a puppet with its strings cut, aided by the weight of his partner dropping onto him.

By now three were out for the count except man one and two who were struggling under their men's weight piled on them, Toni reached down for a gun when shots ricocheted down the corridor which caused her to pull back and fall back onto her ass.

She pulled out her phone and slid it on it's side out into the hallway with a whispered call of "Friday, give me visuals!" She really wished she hadn't uninstalled the AI girl from the compound, it set her on edge to not have her eyes in the sky as usual. Her girl should be able to access the compounds camera's with enough prodding.

'There's a man down the hall from you, boss, one gun and another by the lab, he's in possession of a gun with a high radiation as detected by the armour through the doors—' If the suit was detecting it through the thick armoured walls and door, it had to be alien tech. They were still tracking Toomes' customers, from petty thieves to mafia types. The guy sold to everyone, at dirt cheap prices for that caliber of weapon. They were here for Toni, she didn't think that fence malfunction was an accident. '—it corresponds to the alien technology, Adrian Toomes was selling, it would seem that these men are his customers.'

And not very lucrative one's given they only possessed one high tech gun, but if they got into her lab they'd be a bigger threat...she'd have to use Plan C, the danger was too high now, Toomes' weapons could cut through nearly any metal.

She bolted across the room, ripped one of the napkins off the bar area, dunked it in the water jug and configured it small enough to fit in her exposed ear.

'FRIDAY, scramble the frequency on my bluetooth to one hundred and forty decibels and activate protocol Nine-Delta-Stane-Charlie-Fresno!' Tony shouted, clamping her hands around her ears as an almost inaudible ring echoed through the compound, causing all exposed bodies to drop as their muscles slackened and Toni to feel queasy and pained as one ear was blasting with unending noise from the bluetooth. She stumbled when the noise was cut off, retrieving her weapon of choice, ripping out the makeshift ear plug and rubbing her temples as a migraine set in from the scrambled frequency. She flopped onto the couch limply.

'Babygirl, status update.' She yawned, observing the now bent and bloody umbrella before throwing it onto the coffee table, luckily missing her laptop. Small mercies.

'Police are on route and should be here in less than five minutes, the seventh gunman penetrated the labs perimeter but was paralysed as he was walking over threshold, he hit his head on the floor and fell unconscious. Concussion detected. I recommend you start drafting your incident report for the Accords council before your attention is caught by something else.'

Toni groaned as she pulled herself up. The report.

There would be interviews, a police report and questions about the altercation, that would probably lead to questions on where she learned to fight like that.

An idea popped into her head.

She could erase the tapes...she could stage a crime scene in less than four minutes.

 _Buuuut_...

She was _accountable_ now, that's why she signed the accords in the first place, to give people peace of mind, to earn their trust back...it would seem really suspicious if the tapes were blank for the whole fight.

 _But if I erase or scramble them as far back as the fences cutting off…_

'God dammit.' She swore as she hunched down over he laptop to start on the report. It would be fine, she was a high profile target, of course she would know self defense. The farthest those tapes would go was the council, at most; the UN.

* * *

She was wrong.

She was _fucking wrong_.

Some _imbecile_ had leaked the video, audio and all.

Someone would pay for this.

Someone would be getting fired.

 _Breathe._ Relax. _Breathe_. She chanted to herself, but really, she felt exposed. People seemed to take her in under all new eyes now. No longer looking her up and down with disbelieving eyes that _this flirty eye candy was the world-renowned engineer and scientist Toni Stark?_

Don't even get her started on the Iron Man pilot conspiracy theories.

The point being that Toni thrived on that disbelief, the feeling of proving someone wrong, of breaking their expectations, of being underestimated.

It was probably her greatest weapon.

Besides her lips. They were _fantastic_.

Her brain wasn't half bad either.

Her mood improved, until she caught another glimpse at the headlines.

 _ **Stark By Starkwest!**_

 _ **The Stark Identity**_

 _ **Toni Stark: Licence to kill**_

 _ **Mr &**_ _**M**_ _ **r**_ _ **s Stark**_

 _ **Starkfall**_

 _ **10 Times Toni Stark Was A Total Kween**_

The spy puns sucked. Couldn't they just follow Buzzfeed's example? Ugh, listen to her, hoping journalists take after _Buzzfeed_. Barf.

Though she did support their _Avenger's Best Butt Poll,_ her's totally won, against T'Challa of all people. She had it framed and sent to him with a gift basket and _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_ 's shield. More of an ice breaker than anything, to say _yeah, I know you're hiding my former teammates in your country, good luck with those assholes._

Yes, the card did actually say that.

So what.

Toni liked to be straightforward with potential allies. Plus she wanted that butt ugly shield out of her workshop and painting _fuck you_ across the front with Steve's "Peace offering" cell phone taped to the front was cathartic. A weight seemed to drop off her shoulders, especially when she wrote to T'Challa that her one stipulation of her silence was to keep any and all contact of Steve Rogers to her was to be stopped immediately. _For my credibility_ she wrote, but she was sure that he knew exactly why she wanted nothing to do with Steve Rogers.

So what if he knew. She was moving on and leaving them in the dust, she'd travelled to _India_. India! For mental health treatment. She was changing. She was letting it go.

The Avengers weren't her family any more.


	2. Chapter 2

'Eggsy!'

The young man popped his head out of the lavatory, jaw and hands covered in white foam, while a toothbrush dangled from his mouth.

Merlin sighed at the picture the young agent made: still so young, so excited, so chipper. He rubbed his hairless head at the thought. It had been just a few months since they had lost Galahad—Harry, Eggsy was Galahad now—and obstructed V-day. They'd lost one-thousand-two-hundred and sixty-seven innocent lives to Valentine's plot, not accounting the sixty-one churchgoers, seven-hundred and twenty-seven heads Merlin exploded, and twenty-eight people Eggsy murdered to reach the kill switch. It was a miracle the death toll wasn't in the millions.

Though Merlin knew that they had an ally to account for that.

Toni Stark. A "retired" Kingsman.

Guilt swelled in his heart. Toni was still helping them when they had all but abandoned her and left her to deal with the fallout of her final mission. Afghanistan.

'Change of plan. We're passing along all our files on our current mission to Lancelot and Guinevere.' He ignores the young man's muffled protests in favour of doing just that.

Eggsy stumbled out of the bathroom while wiping his face clean with a towel, which was monogrammed with a golden "K" in a circle.

'What's happening, Merlin?'

'A code B.O.C,' The scotsman muttered pulling up the files on the Kingsman in question. Toni Stark. Eggsy seemed confused.

'But a code B.O.C is only for a Kingsman in dan—' Eggsy cut himself off at Merlin's look. ' _Fuck off_ ,' he gasped, ' _Toni Stark—Iron Man_ is a _Kingsman_?' Eggsy nudged Merlin's chair with his hip to get in front of the monitor, pulling up all the files on Toni Stark, codename: Lady In The Lake.

'Tha' codename's wicked, but bit of a mouth full, that.' Eggsy said, as Merlin pushed him back.

'We called— _call_ her Lady.' Merlin said.

'How come I haven't seen her 'round HQ? Is there an American branch? Holy shit, are there American Kingsman? Kind of takes from Arthur's whole aristocratic thing, bu' then again that shithead was as cockney as me.' Merlin smiled at Eggsy's excitement.

'There are American Kingsman in a sense, they're the cousin of our organisation, but we only get in touch in dire times, they're called the _Statesman_ ,' Merlin said while accessing the Accords Council's files and findings on the attack at the Avengers Compound, but much of it had been redacted, possibly to avoid outsider's like him from taking sensitive information. The world had already seen the fight in HD, so what more was there to hide?

'Is that what she is? A Statesman?' Eggsy asked watching Merlin search through news sites on one screen and government databases on the other.

'No, she was recruited when she came to the U.K to study and lecture at Cambridge at seventeen, but we'd been been keeping an eye on her for far longer; when she was in high school she hacked into the Pentagon. Things like that don't go unnoticed, Eggsy.' Eggsy waited for him to continue and was disappointed when he didn't.

'So is she a Statesmen or—?' Eggsy drawled taking a seat on the couch across from Merlin's desk. He sank right into the leather and released a happy sigh, he'd never get used to the luxuries that came with being a Kingsmen. This couch was more comfortable than the bed in his old flat, and it was on a plane! His bed at Harry's hou— _his house_ , it was his house now. Harry was dead—was equally as comfortable, maybe even more so.

'No, she's a Kingsmen, though she did win Miss United States in 1991.' Merlin smirked and tapped a button before spinning around to show the young man the screen which held the picture of a much younger Toni Stark decked out in a sash and crown.

'Ooooh! Was it some undercover op where she had to get access to the dressing rooms.' Eggsy grinned, waggling his eyebrows up and down suggestively.

'That's the plot of Miss Congeniality and no, her mother just happened to be a debutante and her father thought it would be good PR for his company, but they were a weapons manufacturer so I don't really know how—it's actually a rather funny and interesting story but,' Merlin waved his hands in a so-so manner before turning back around, 'Another time.'

'OK, you've never said _why_ she's not active, I mean, she's _Iron Man_ , she could be a huge help to us.' Merlin sighed, if he was going to bring Eggsy to meet Toni, he needed to be briefed before hand so he wouldn't ask questions better left unsaid in front on Toni.

'She hasn't been active since Afghanistan, her last mission for us.' He watched the dawning comprehension on Eggsy's face before continuing, 'On record she was going to do a personal unveiling of the new Stark Industries targeting system and its application to the Jericho missile. Unofficially…' Merlin pulled up a picture of a man in uniform with greying hair and scars littered on his face with the name Donald P. Franklin under his picture.

'She was to get close to this man when she returned to the U.S Afgan base. He was suspected of trading military secrets of the U.S and it's allies to the Russians and anyone else who would pay top dollar. Unfortunately her convoy was attacked by a now believed-to-be-extinct terrorist organisation; The Ten Rings.' Pictures were pulled up on the screen as Merlin talked and Eggsy took it all in as much as he could. No one knew a thing about Iron Man's beginnings, Toni Stark had never talked about it past her first press conference on U.S soil when she was rescued from captivity.

" _I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them, and I saw that I had become apart of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability."_

Eggsy was thirteen when that press conference was aired, still angry and resentful of the world and his place in it. That Gary Unwin saw his future much like every other boy in his social class and background; destined to fall into a life of petty crime and drug dealing before landing in prison or dead due to caper gone wrong. He got kicked out of class nearly every day back then.

That press conference had given Eggsy hope. Hope that people like him weren't just canon fodder to one percenters and the government, because if Toni Stark cared, someone who previously was just known for getting mortal and banging, then there had to be hope for the others. For him.

Then a few weeks later, Iron Man had been spotted in Middle Eastern countries attacking one of the biggest enemies to Western soldiers. People just like his dad.

So he studied and worked hard in school, catching up to the standard required for a young person taking their A-Levels, and every night before he fell into bed, bone tired and eyes fuzzy from all the posh words his school books carried, the last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the Iron Man poster above his desk. Iron Man was his hero.

He endured through his step-father's— _Dean_ his mind corrected, that wanker was nothing to them now except their abuser and Daisy's sperm donor— taunts and jokes before making it to the Royal Marines. Top of his class. He would serve and protect like his father before him.

Like Iron Man.

Then it all went tits up.

He came home in his uniform, so proud and ready to show his mum how _brave_ he was, eager for her to praise him and remark how much of his father she saw in him. He cringes just thinking of his naivete.

She went right mental. Droning on and on about losing him too. It took him stripping down to his skivvies, hugging her close and promising that he quit! He quit! For her to calm down.

The day he came back from that now cold and hopeless building after handing in his uniform and resignation from the Royal Marines he tore down his Iron Man poster. It signified his failure, the loss of his dream.

Iron Man was out there saving the world from aliens; single handedly flying into the wormhole where an alien army was on the other side of, to save the world. Saving him, his mum and even that shithead Dean, who was at the pub while he comforted his mum in their shitty flat in front of the telly thinking they would be dead or enslaved at any moment.

Iron Man was an Avenger. One of earth's mightiest heroes.

What was he doing three years after the wormhole?

Jobless and living with his mum and dickhead stepdad.

Then nearly a year later, Iron Man stopped the Mandarin from murdering the President of the United States. It was a hell of a christmas present.

With every news report of Iron Man and the super friends, Eggsy felt shittier and shittier.

He could've been out there fighting the good fight. In afgan or Iraq sure, but still helping, instead of sitting on his arse with his balls in his hands.

Then he was recruited by the Kingsmen at twenty-two, he had no idea what Harry saw in him, maybe it was his dad—who was a _Kingsman recruit,_ who died saving his team and not KIA as they had been led to believe—but all Eggsy cared about was that he was getting his chance, _he was going to be something_ , maybe even a hero. Like Iron Man.

Then four months into training, while his life was finally coming together, Toni Stark's was going to shit. Seeing Captain America refuse to talk to Iron Man set his teeth on edge, didn't he know what she sacrificed? What she did for the small people like him?

Ultron may not have been Iron Man's fault—as many investigations had concluded post-Sokovia and even though she took the full brunt of the consequences—but some of the fatalities could have been prevented if the Avengers worked with the Sokovian government or other government branches for evacuation and protection of valuable resources, i.e nuclear codes.

Even the Kingsman worked in tandem with FBI, MI6 and other such agencies to swap valuable information and resources. The only reason they succeeded in the Valentine debacle was pure dumb luck, and Toni Stark putting an umbrella of protection of sorts over New York City and branching out to block the satellite's reach.

Eggsy couldn't fathom how someone could reject their group becoming _stronger_ because of a bad experience. Hell, high up government officials were willing to murder billions of people to stop climate change, but that didn't stop Eggsy from going out and voting. Those tossers were dead anyway, if anything Eggsy felt safer.

'Believed to be extinct?' Eggsy asked with a raised eyebrow.

'We thought they had been wiped out after Iron Man's repeated attacks and Obadiah Stane's genocide of their biggest camp, but as you know, in 2013, the U.S was plagued with many terror attacks, the man responsible called himself _The Mandarin,_ a known leader amongst The Ten Rings, although we know now that it was a scientist named Aldrich Killian and his think tank A.I.M, we'd rather cover our bases in case another affiliate should rise.' Merlin sighed, taking off his glasses to clean them.

'When Toni was recovered, our debrief determined that she wasn't fit for field duty anymore. She had PTSD, night terrors, none of it was pretty. She brought it to the review board as she thought the Kingsman could be a key element in reclaiming black market Starktech and helping wipeout The Ten Rings. We reminded Tony that the black market dealing was a job for the military or Stark Industries itself and even if the Kingsman did get involved she wouldn't be allowed any where near the investigation. She called me and Harry up as witness' in the hearing...we both thought it best to recommend Ms. Stark got therapy, focused on getting better while Harry and I would take lead on such an investigation if it were green lit.'

Eggsy winced, 'So she was you and Harry's mate but you didn't support her even though the whole reason she called you up was because she thought you'd agree with her?'

'She called us up to get our opinions, whatever she thought is of no consequence.' Merlin said remotely changing the plane's destination co-ordinates from his place at the desk.

'Bullshit,' The young agent stood up abruptly, 'She was your friend, you should have backed her up, I mean she was hardly wrong. A few weeks after she was back, Iron Man was tearing up the Middle East, taking down terrorists, saving people—' Merlin's hand cracked down on the desk as he stood up to face Eggsy.

'We didn't want her out there!' The scotsman yelled, 'She had no business heading into enemy territory as compromised as she was, it's a fucking miracle that she wasn't killed! The woman was terrified of bodies of water when she came back, do you think she was ready to fly over oceans in an untested suit to fight the very men who beat and tortured her! Sometimes to be a good friend to someone, you can't support everything they do, you have to do what's best for them. We told Toni no and withdrew our support, she went anyway. We gave her people to talk to and treatments but you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped!' Merlin took a breath but still looked angry.

'And another thing! If you're going to be introduced to her, drop the hero worship! Toni doesn't need a lap dog, she needs an ally.' Merlin snapped with a final tone before turning on his heel toward the cockpit.

Eggsy sat down with a sigh, the chair didn't seem that comfortable anymore.

* * *

'Your E-mail was received and the plane has rerouted itself to London, Boss.'

Toni smiled from her place beside the newly finished armour, wiping her hands on her jeans and standing up to observe the airplanes new destination on the holographic screen.

'Well, FRIDAY, prep the StarkJet. Let's see if those thrusters will increase speed like they're supposed to. Bet you three nights of sleep we can beat those ninny's to London. I wanna meet the new blood.' She scanned the profile of Gary Unwin. He seemed to be a good replacement for Galahad on paper, but she'd have to see so herself.

'May I suggest a shower first? First impressions are important.' Toni sniffed herself. Yeah, that idea wasn't a bad one.

'No one likes a straight shooter, FRIDAY, learn to beat around the bush a little.' Toni said as she walked up to the upper floor of her lab.

'A-OK, Boss. I'm loading the plane with apple juice and snacks for when you take your nap in accordance with your Accords Sanctioned agreement to keep yourself in top form for Avengers work; such as eating and sleeping regularly.' The A.I said sweetly.

Toni narrowed her eyes at the air before she pushed into the bathroom.

'Damn A.I's always come out sassy. I need to stop talking to them so much during the key stages. 'Course I already have like five made so they're probably just as sassy…'

* * *

'Toni needs us.' Steve insisted pointing at the screen which was replaying the video of Toni fighting seven attackers. 'The Accords aren't protecting her! She needs us there.'

'She sent back your olive branch, Cap, she spit in your face when you didn't even do anything wrong.' Clint grunted lifting the dumbbell above his head.

'Toni's ego won't let her call us. The only way this gets fixed is if we get her alone and tell her to pull back. We convince her of the benefits of united front, mention preparing for the 'invasion' and get her to go against the Accords.' Natasha said from beside Clint.

'No, I think we should stay where we are and let the Accords crash and burn with Tony along with it. Otherwise Stark will insist the Accords would have worked if we hadn't dismantled them.' Clint huffed.

'I want Toni to bring us back because the Accords were wrong. Not because we manipulated her.'

'Well tough shit, Steve. My wife and kids are back home. I have no way of contacting them and I've been gone for nearly a year! If all it takes is a little pandering to Stark and a few quickies on egyptian sheets you're gonna do it! Besides, you two have been dancing around each other since '09, maybe making it official will keep her in line.' The archer grunted lifting the weight onto the stand before sitting up.

'That's none of your business, Clint! Besides, all I was doing was comforting her when things with Pepper got rough.' Steve said, red in the face.

'Well, the longer we stay in Wakanda. The more time Pepper gets to "comfort" Toni.'

* * *

 **What do you think?**

 **I messed around with the timeline a little. To get the scope, go to this link:**

 **post/162858582292/mcu-timeline-conflict**

 **And as you can tell I messed around with Eggsy's age so V-day happened in February 2017 instead of 14/15 whatever. So he was born in 1995 instead of '93 like it said on his profile on the screen in the movie. There's probably a mistake but just go with it. Nobodys perfect.**

 **I'm also adding a weird Stony thing. So steve and Toni were never together, she just went to him when she was lonely or fighting with Pepper (over business stuff or Iron man. not their love for each other.)**

 **-Ireland :)**


End file.
